Failed Mending

Ailment

Kind	Magic's toll
Cause	Lifeforce repair that overcorrects injury, most often when one wound is forced to heal again and again, when regrowth is pushed too far, or in wounded places
Strikes	The often-wounded and the often-healed of every people: soldiers, labourers, those healed by aggressive regrowth; in Trolls it is inherited nature, not an ailment
Contagion	Not contagious
Mortality	Seldom kills; leaves knotted scar, stiffness, pain, and altered limbs for life
Treatment	Prevention above all: stabilization before rework and Pattern Recall early; once set, recovery is compensated at best
Regions	Widespread; most common on battlefields, in war-hospices, and at crossings and wounded places where harm keeps recurring

A distorted healing pattern in which lifeforce repair overcorrects, closing wounds too strongly and preserving harm in altered form; it became heritable in the Trolls. See How Magic Works.

Overview

Failed Mending is the rare distorted healing pattern set out under Lifeforce, in which repair overanswers injury. As an ailment of most peoples it is a healer's dread, the case that was saved and came out wrong: a hand that closed into a knot, a cheek that grew a ridge, a knee healed so strongly it will not bend. It does not kill. It keeps the wound.

Cause

Healing guides lifeforce to restore a damaged body. Pressed too hard or too often, it stops restoring and starts answering: the body closes the wound and keeps closing, and regrowth runs past the shape it should have stopped at. It sets in most often when the same wound is forced to heal again and again, when regrowth such as Regrowth Spur is pushed past what the body can settle, and in wounded places where damage and repair keep recurring. Vital backlash, the overcorrection a failed healing leaves (see Backlash), can begin it.

Who It Strikes

Those who are hurt and healed most: soldiers healed between battles, quarry and road workers who reopen the same injury, champions kept on their feet by repeated working, and patients of impatient healers. People who live long at wounded crossings, ravines, and old battlefields see more of it.

Trolls are not its patients. In them the pattern became stable and heritable long ago, and their regrowth is their nature; a Troll's knotted body is healthy for a Troll.

Signs and Course

The first sign comes during healing: a wound that closes too fast, too hot, and too firm, with flesh that rises instead of lying flat. Over the following days the new tissue thickens into ridges and knots. A joint healed this way stiffens; a broken bone mends heavier and slightly wrong; skin goes thick and dull. Pain often stays in the place, as if the injury were still there under the repair.

The turning point is the first healing after the first sign. If the healer stops, steadies the body, and leads the repair back towards its old shape, the mark stays small. If the same wound is healed hard again, each round sets it deeper, and after a few the change is permanent.

Contagion

Failed Mending does not pass between people. In other peoples it is not inherited.

Treatment and Its Limits

Prevention is nearly the whole of it. A good healer stabilizes the body before reworking an injury, rests a wound between healings, and uses Pattern Recall early, while the body still remembers its undamaged shape. Ordinary surgery, splints, and time do no harm here and are often better than another working.

Once it has set, recovery is compensated at best: the body works, but not as before (see Costs and Side Effects). Scar Soften, warm oils, and patient stretching ease stiffness and pain but do not undo the change, and every session costs the healer.

Mortality

It seldom kills. A knotted throat or chest can choke or cramp a patient, and an internal organ healed wrongly can fail years later. Survivors keep the change for life: stiffness, a limp, a twisted hand, a pain that knows the weather.

Lore and Belief

Humans of the basins call it "proud healing" and say the wound would not let go. Many blame the healer, and some blame the place, holding that a crossing where blood was spilled makes its wounds heal angry. Old soldiers keep their knotted scars as proof of service, and some healers refuse a patient who has been worked on too often by another. Scholars do not know why the pattern became heritable in Trolls alone, and each explanation accuses someone different.

In the Medieval Era

Failed Mending is a war-hospice and frontier ailment. The schools of Vital Magic teach against it, and a healer known for it loses custom. Villages meet it mostly in the soldier come home with a hand like a root. Healers who treat Trolls must remember that the closing of a Troll wound is a matter of Troll body-law and rite, and should ask before they erase a scar.

Where It Appears

Lifeforce (Failed Mending)
Costs and Side Effects (clean, compensated, and palliative recovery)
Medieval Ordinary Access Reference
Vital Magic (Regrowth Spur)
Trolls
The Stabilization of Failed Mending
Medieval Era Overview
Overview: Notable Villains
the Writers' Guide chapter How Magic Works
the Writers' Guide chapter The Bridge Peoples

In the Writers’ Guide

How Magic Works FoundationsLifeforce, The Price
The Schools of Magic FoundationsThe Compound Schools, The Common Spells
The Bridge Peoples FoundationsTrolls: The Keepers of Broken Crossings
The Ages of Caeldon FoundationsThe Deep Ruptures
The Civilizations of the Medieval Era The Medieval EraOrders Without Ground
Magic in Ordinary Life The Medieval EraThe Healer at the Door
Unnatural Afflictions The Medieval EraThe Price of the Art
The Basins and the Marches The Medieval EraThe Broken Marches
Writing in the Medieval Era The Medieval EraWhat the Pages Leave Open, Tensions
Glossary Foundations